As seen through a mirror
by The hazel-eyed bookworm
Summary: When he was seven, Harry gained a friend, an ally who was with him through thick and thin. One day, just like he appeared, Gopal disappeared. Several years later, he is back. But Harry thinks he was just a figment of his imagination. What will Gopal do to prove him wrong?
1. Prologue

** Hello! This is my first HP story! Please enjoy!**

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_I am the fruit I ate and I am the water and minerals that fueled that fruit._

_I am also one who will be mineral, which will feed another fruits, which will feed other men ..._

Sometimes Harry thought how to describe how he felt.

Perhaps like inky blue mixed with a searing red, swirling together, turning from color to color, never stopping. Perhaps he would call it words upon words, screams upon screams, letter upon letter, stacked until everything was a blur, a blissful haze.

How he felt was no longer seeing the line between good and evil. It was questioning what he loved and finding the value of what he hated.

_I am who I was, who I am, and who I always will be..._

Having ideas- millions of ideas, incomprehensible ideas- and not having a way to communicate them. It was thinking about death more than life but life more than death. It was losing yourself within yourself and understanding but not comprehending and seeing the world on a scale so wide you realized that, in the end, you didn't matter.

_Existence is endless._

_You are born, die, and reborn ... you build and destroy, and build again..._

He felt everything everyone overlooked. How he felt was well-hidden and stored away in meaningful places. Harry looked at the mirror of his room and smiled at his reflection-no, at another reflection- a brown-haired, brown eyed boy.

If someone entered the room, they wouldn't see him there. They never did.

_With him…with him is that all started…_

Harry smiled.

"Hello Gopal."

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**This just popped in my head. Gopal will be explained later. Review please.**

**H. E. B.**


	2. A new friend

**Here is the second chapter of ASTAM. Gopal appears in this chapter, as well as some of his backstory. It is vague, it is very vague, but I didn't want to reveal everything at once.**

"Normal speaking."

_"Gopal's speaking."_

_'Thoughts.'_

* * *

Gopal was an eight-year-old boy, the only son of Yago, the leader of the Great Village, the largest population of Another Earth. Instead of spending his days studying at the Service Academy, the school where he would be educated to be the future leader of his people, he spent the afternoon inventing.

The inhabitants of the Other Earth are beings very humble and kind that give their lives to serve, and many, many years back they served the humans who populated the Earth, that world behind the crystals.

With humility, Gopal's ancestors helped humans in many ways, subtle and not so subtle. The service they provide, in general, is to contribute to spiritual development. On some occasions manifesting, but the vast majority do so without being seen. The beings of the Other Earth have helped humans from behind the mirrors to have a clearer vision of themselves. However, the affable relationship that existed for three centuries between the two worlds was breaking, as humans became more cruel, violent and selfish. The obstinacy of solving their problems with disputes and war; their fascination with the power and lies, and the increasing lack of love, were the reasons why the link with humans was cut forever.

When Gopal was born, there had been several years since they last had any contact with humans, and when he was seven, he had heard many stories about the evil and corruption of them. To Gopal, intrusive and rebellious, these stories fired his curiosity.

At first, it was a short trip to the Mount of Crystals, where he could look to the Earth. From these clear crystals could be seen all corners of the Earth, as long as the other side was a reflective material, such as a mirror or glass.

What he saw through those crystals fascinated him. It was true, he saw scenes of great cruelty and injustice, inexplicable to him, but he also saw a lot of beauty, and he was fascinated by human art. He also thought some of them were very funny. What he liked most was watching humans when they were alone; since all their behavior changed markedly when they were with a person. He didn't quite understand why these artificial attitudes.

Gopal was so enthralled with that forbidden world that, breaking all laws -especially for him, since he was the son of the one who enforced these laws-started going every week to the Mount of Crystals to observe the humans. And all that would have ended as the mischief of a child, had he not broken the law that under no circumstances should be broken: not to make contact with humans.

That was absolutely forbidden.

One evening, he visited a human school, to see how kids his age studied. Apart from that the contents were somewhat basic for him, human school and the kids his age were not so different. Except for a great detail: humans fought verbally and physically. And it was so prevalent that adults prohibited and penalized it. That was unheard of.

Visiting the school, he ran into a fight on the playground, though it was not exactly a fight: a group of older boys harassed and tortured a smaller one, who just tried to protect himself. Gopal had the immediate impulse to intervene and help, but still weighed the prohibition to do so. However, he had an immediate empathy with that seven-year-old short, skinny, spectacled boy, whose shyness barely allowed him to talk. He knew, by the shouts and jeers of the assailants, that his name was Harry.

That day, when Harry walked home, Gopal followed him projecting through the windows of the shops. All the way Gopal waited for the moment when Harry would tell his parents what had happened at school, but the child did not. Instead, Gopal was shocked to discover that Harry didn't have a mom and a dad, and the way he was treated…God, _the way he was treated!_ He did practically all the chores in the house, and slept in a cupboard. A cupboard! Gopal had seen this wasn't normal human behavior. Coming to think about it, when Harry had been last fed?

The watcheing boy knew that such a treatment to one's offspring was unthinkable. Harry's aunt and uncle even had their own son, who not only was treated worlds better than Harry, he was one of the bullies as well!

In Gopal's opinion, the Dursleys were the exact kind of humans his father had warned him about. Harry, on the other hand…

Gopal began to peek daily to the other world, to go and watch Harry, and so the growing affection towards him grew even more. Until one day, the impotence at the mistreatment the human child received weighted more than the prohibition, and he took the step that should have never been taken.

A Friday afternoon Harry had finished all activities in school and was in the bathroom washing his hands, when Gopal saw that while he was doing this, outside a group of boys, the bullies of everyday, were waiting and preparing him a very mean prank: they had a huge skateboard which they would tie Harry to, and they would throw him down the road behind the school.

Gopal assessed it was an unpredictable prank, which could have serious consequences. When he turned his gaze and saw that Harry finished drying his hands and was about to leave the bathroom, Gopal, powerless and urged, could not help but jump on the glass that separated them and shout. All they needed the beings of the Other Earth to be seen was to want it. And that day Gopal **wanted** to be seen and heard by Harry.

Harry was quiet in the solitude of the bathroom when suddenly, he saw a boy appearing from inside the mirror. A brown haired boy who presented himself as Gopal, told him of the prank his cousin and 'friends' were about to pull on him.

Harry's first reaction was to run out of the bath, but the boy on the other side of the mirror approached the door -the one which was reflected, not the real one- and pushed it. And as it closed in the mirror, the actual door closed. Harry was even more scared: the madboy in the mirror had locked him in!

_"I don't wanna hurt you! On the contrary!"_ Gopal assured.

"Who are you? What are you?" managed to ask Harry.

_"I'm Gopal, and I'm a boy, like you, but I live on this side of the mirror."_

Harry thought he had finally gone mad.

Harry watched the bathroom looking for ways to escape from such a strange attack, but Gopal insisted and asked him to peep into the yard to be convinced of what he was saying. Then Gopal half opened the door slightly and Harry peered, cautious, and actually saw the bullies gathered near the bathroom, with a skateboard, in the furtive attitude of one who is about to do a dangerous and prohibited action.

"What will they do to me?" Harry asked with a fearful voice, still surprised to be talking to someone behind the mirror.

_"They'll wander you back and forth, tied to the skateboard. You won't come out of this in one piece."_ Gopal said.

"Then what do I do?"

_"You get out."_ Gopal said and pointed to a small window that was in the back of the bathroom.

Harry pondered the proposal. He hesitated, but realized he had no choice. Then he climbed to the sink. From there he reached for the window, opened it with difficulty and with great effort he climbed and went for it. Logically, on the outside of the bathroom, the window was high, but there were garbage cans piled up, so it was not difficult. From there, he began to surround the bathroom, to get away from his attackers without being seen. Passing another window, he saw Gopal reflected in the pale and dirty glass, who extended his thumb up as a sign of complicity and approval.

"Thank you." Harry smiled.

But suddenly he noticed that Gopal's face twisted in horror: one of the boys had seen Harry, was alerting the rest, and were all running towards him.

_"Run!"_ Gopal shouted.

And Harry ran, and could actually see the miracle of his new friend. Throughout his race, Harry watched as Gopal appeared in different reflective surfaces. Mirrors of cars, in stained glasses and even puddles. And from there he manipulated the objects reflected, and thus could attack and slow down his attackers.

Reflected in a puddle, Gopal stepped on his foot the blurry water so that it got splashed in all directions, surprising one of the attackers, blinding him. Inside the mirror of a car, opened the door so two other boys collided with it. To another one, he made him trip from the reflection of a window. As he ran, Harry could not believe what he saw.

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"Aunt Petunia says people who hear voices are crazy." Harry told the boy in the small mirror he had managed to sneak into his cupboard.

_"I don't think you are crazy. You are real, I am real. You just see me because I want to."_ Gopal answered. _"Why do you live with them? Why do they treat you like this? It isn't right!"_ Harry shh'ed when he heard Aunt Petunia's light footsteps pass past his cupboard. He didn't want his guardian angel taken away.

_"They can't hear me either, Harry."_ The boy outside the mirror sighed.

"They don't call me Harry." He figured that Gopal wouldn't tell. As far as he had seen, he had a very strong dislike to the Dursleys. "They call me Boy or… Freak."

Gopal frowned_. "I don't think you are a freak."_

Harry then explained to him that he actually _was_, that he could do strange things, like making his hair grow back or turn his teacher's wig blue or suddenly being into another place entirely…

_"Maybe you are from the Other Earth."_ Gopal mused thoughtfully. _"Here we can appear and disappear whenever we want to since we turn fourteen…"_

"Boy! Get here, you have to cook dinner!" Harry heard Aunt Petunia's shrill voice.

"You better go. I will be busy and we won't be able to talk." Harry said sadly. Gopal huffed and looked ready to tug at his hair. _"Fine,"_ he said with extreme reluctance. _"But this conversation is NOT over."_

"Does that mean I will see you again?" Harry asked, hope shining inside those emerald eyes. Gopal stared at him with an expression that was very serious for an eight-year old.

_"It's a promise."_ He said, wishing that he could do something to get his new friend free.

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**Any comments and questions will be answered. Review!**

**H. E. B.**


	3. The end of the dream

**Hello, guys! Here is the chapter I promised!**

**Thanks to my awesome betareader, by the way. Austin you rock!**

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From that day they became inseparable friends. Harry looked forward to the time when his friend only visible for him came to visit him, to talk or sing together while he was doing chores. Even if sometimes it was quite a feat not to jump in the air when Gopal's voice rang to the otherwise empty room.

_"Do you like to sing?"_ Gopal once asked, having caught Harry happily singing along a song on the radio. Vernon had been at work, Petunia and Dudley at some friend's, so Harry and Gopal had the entire house for them.

"I love it." Harry had replied with a smile, which fell the second after. "But the Dursleys don't like anything musical-they don't like anything fun, really- so I often sing when I'm alone."

_'Cupboard, starvation, name-calling, occasional beatings, denying what he likes...Is there a way for Harry to come here?'_ To Gopal, the way he was treated at school and at home, was absolutely outrageous, and thought that the boy should excel in classes, that way they would leave him alone. For what he knew, humans respected knowledge.

"Yeah but Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia don't like if I do better than Dudley." Harry said.

_"Wha-? Those…animals don't know how to raise a kid properly and you listen to them?! At least make sure you're not failing! You know what, they can't tell you what to do when you're speaking, right? So you, my friend,"_ Gopal said determinately while nearing his face to the crystal. "_Are going to be great in the oral report Miss Daniels gave you for Friday. And don't worry, I will help you"_

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"Okay class time for your oral reports on a chosen animal," said Mrs. Daniels. "We are going to go in alphabetical order." So one by one the classmates gave their report.

"What if I mess it up?" the black-haired boy asked to his friend.

_"I will help you."_ Gopal answered simply.

"What if someone copies my animal?" Was the nervous question three kids later. _"Meh, your report will be the best of the class._" Gopal bragged as he swiped brown curls off his face. _"Wait up, I have something I want to do."  
_  
It was Dudley's turn and Gopal had seen that there was a reflection of Dudley in the whiteboard so he decided to have some fun and make Harry less nervous by messing with him by flicking different parts of his body's reflection.

_"Still think he should have chosen whales instead of bears."_ Gopal said to Harry. _"He should know his own specie well, don't you think?"_ Harry had to repress his snickers as while Dudley was giving his report he felt like someone was flicking him making him stumble over his words.

Finally after Harry finished biting all of his nails (and Gopal tried incessantly for him to stop it) it was Harry's turn and he nervously walked to the front of the class.

"_It's okay Harry_," said Gopal from his spot in the whiteboard. _"You will do great."_

"Okay what animal is your report about Harry?" Asked the teacher.

"It's about tigers Ma'am." Said Harry.

"Harry Potter, report tigers," the woman wrote on her notebook, which Harry supposed was to mark the children. "Okay Harry you can begin now." Mrs. Daniels said.

"Thank you ma'am." Said Harry

"_Now, don't be nervous. Remember what we practiced. I will help you if you get stuck,"_ said Gopal. Harry gave a subtle nod.

"Okay the animal that my report is on is the tiger. The tiger is the largest member of the felid –I mean the cat- family. They sport long, thick reddish coats with white bellies and white and black tails." Harry thanked God for his friend in the mirror. While in his homeland Gopal was an average student, on Earth his knowledge was superior. "Their heads, bodies, tails and limbs have narrow black, brown or gray stripes. Tigers occupy a variety of habitats. They are mostly nocturnal- er, that means more active at night-…." Harry stumbled over his words and tried not to notice all the kids staring at him. This was the main reason he disliked going to the front of the class.

_"It's okay Harry just repeat after me,"_ said Gopal

"And are ambush predators that rely on the camouflage their stripes provide." Mrs. Daniels noted that Harry, after a deep breath and some seconds to remember his words, was speaking much more confidently. She frowned, though, when halfaway through Harry's report –very detailed for that of a seven-year-old- Harry stammered again, but this time he didn't talked about his report again. He looked at the whiteboard, and then at each one of the windows, first subtly but then with increasing agitation.

"Gopal where are you? Help me." Harry's whisper shocked the teacher, even more so when Harry ran to one of the windows, his whisper becoming a yell.

"Gopal, where are you? Gopal help me." Harry said, ignoring his classmates' laughs, again and again and again.

His friend never reappeared.

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Gopal was in the Mount of Crystals, looking to the Earth, nervously following Harry, when suddenly someone grabbed his shoulder and dragged him away from the glass he was peering in. Gopal spun around, scared, and there was his father, with a stern face.

Gopal felt as if the world came crashing over him. He had tried his best not to attract any attention, never doing anything out of the ordinary. In the six months that he had to keep Harry company he had never thought someone would think he was acting weird.

"Papa, I-" he had to explain, he had to tell him there was a little boy who needed help –_his_ help.

Without a word, his father took him by the arm and led him to the seven days, Gopal had to stay in his room, and his father didn't speak to him for ten more days.

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Disobeying the prohibition of interacting with humans was a serious offense for anyone, but even more for the son of the village leader. And the pain that caused his father that contravention never truly went away.

After ten days of not talking to his son, Yago called him into his office and sat before him. With patience and tenderness, but with undoubted strictness, he discussed his feelings and his conclusion.

'You disobedience weighs on all your peers. The prohibition of interacting with humans protects all of us, keeps us safe from their contagious cruelty. You showed yourself, and exposed all of us to the human threat. My mind will forgive you, but my heart is sad. Your problem, son, is that you are that human flying machine that you like so much. You fly, you fly, and we aren't made for flying."

More than the anger and the scolding, Gopal was hurt by the disappointment he saw in the eyes of his father. He was sorry that he had disappointed him, but he did not feel comfortable that his freedom was cut. However, he swore to his father-and promised the rest of their own he would never open the door that communicated with the human world.

And he kept his promise. Never again he climbed back into the Mount of Crystals, and endured sadly his inability to be with Harry, who already considered his best friend. He never went to the earth, nor made contact with a human, though he never stopped thinking about them and continued remembered their objects, customs, and trying to recreate them.

He never saw Harry again. At least, not for a long time.

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**This is so short it isn't even funny. I'm sorry, but I couldn't think for anything else to write. But don't worry, I'll try to make my chapter larger, I swear.**

**H. E. B.**


	4. The flying machine

Little Jumel was a master at eavesdropping. He knew things about the people in the Great Village that would make them blush, and he considered himself to be one of the greatest spies there were. That's why, when he heard a piece of important information about a matter that sounded truly worrying, he did not hesitate on sharing it with the one who he considered to be his best friend.

"Gopal!" he cried out, stumbling as he ran as fast as his legs would carry him. He ducked a purple branch, all the while trying not to trip in the various rocks that littered the uneven ground of the path. "Gopal!"

Jumel found the brown-curled boy working, yet again, in 'something he had seen once, when he was spying in the human world'. Gopal called it a Flying Machine. What he could possibly need it for was a mystery to Jumel, as every child in the Other Earth could everywhere right after their 14th birthday, but he shrugged it off. He was well-used to the oddities of the fifteen-year-old boy.

Gopal didn't even look at him, too engrossed with his invention. Since he was banished from the Mount of Crystals he had always tried to reproduce even the slightest human quirk, or building, which his father didn't approve.

"Gopal!" Jumel yelled, finally out of breath, as the aforementioned boy finally looked over at him. "I...heard the council. They were talking about how 'the balance of magic is distorted'. How someone needed to step in and reestablish that order. The Divine Mother was here"

Gopal looked blankly at him, waiting for the younger boy to go on. It wasn't at all unusual that the Divine Mother, the one that legends told had given them their powers, visited them. The important thing was the motive of this particular visit.

Jumel's amethyst eyes shone as he spoke the last bit. "Gopal...She wants someone to be on a mission on Earth, with the humans, and she chose one of us for that mission." Jumel explained.

"And what is the mission?"

"Well I...don't really know, but I know it has to do with the human you met as a child, Harry."

Gopal wasn't even blinking with anticipation, brown eyes shining. "And-" he coughed, feeling his throat suddenly dry. "And who did she chose for that mission?" he asked with his heart beating a mile per minute. Jumel didn't even spoke, he just pointed at him.

"Me?" Gopal wanted confirmation, happiness bursting through him. Jumel nodded vigorously.

Gopal ran back the way Jumel had come, feeling an indescribable happiness. To go back to watch the humans, those imperfect beings which fascinated him, and above all, to see harry again, his childhood friend, who would be fourteen now, that was pure happiness for Gopal. Going back to the forbidden.

But his happiness and hope vanished immediately when he saw his father telling the Divine Mother respectfully yet determinedly that neither his son or any of his own kind would go to Earth to fulfill any missions with humans.

Gopal, agitated, with his long curls messy for the hurry he had had, almost couldn't contain his disappointment. The Divine Mother turned to look at him and just looked with her big blue eyes. "Your will will be respected, as it is with all living beings."

And just like that she turned around to leave, but before she did she shot Gopal a mischievous smile. It was an invitation to rebel, the trait that had characterized him all his life. There was a mission on Earth. There was a human who needed his help, and that human was his friend. The Divine Mother had said so herself 'Your will will be respected'. And Gopal's will was to jump at that call.

Gopal, who was fifteen already, felt that it was time to make his own decisions.

_'Harry, here I come.'_

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**I am so sorry for the long wait, and for the short chap.**


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